Saturday’s Texas 6A-1 state championship game between Austin Westlake and Southlake Carroll is more than just an unlikely matchup between two teams that had to pull off upsets for a chance to play for hardware.
It is also the “Dodge Bowl.”
When Austin Westlake and Southlake Carroll clash this weekend, so will father and son. Legendary Austin Westlake coach Todd Dodge will do battle against his son, 32-year-old Southlake Carroll coach Riley Dodge.
It’s not really something that you ever really think about,” Todd said, per KVUE ABC. “As a son and father, you sit around and talk about, ‘We’d love to coach together someday. I’d love to coach you at the college level. I’d love to win a state championship together’ – which we got to do – but to coach against each other … never.”
Todd coached Riley at Southlake Carroll throughout his high school career before accepting the head-coaching job at North Texas. Todd returned to the high school ranks in 2012 with Marble Fall High School (Texas) before accepting the job at storied Austin Westlake in 2014. In seven seasons at Austin Westlake, Todd has accumulated an 87-12 record to go along with a Texas 6A-2 state title in 2019.
Riley, meanwhile, still dons the Southlake Carroll green and white after taking over as the program’s head coach in 2018. He is 38-3 in three seasons at the helm, but has yet to win a state championship.
Austin Westlake and Southlake Carroll were supposed to meet at AT&T Stadium to kick off the 2020 season before COVID-19 scrapped the father-son meeting. Now, the two will duke it out on Texas high school football’s biggest stage.
“Neither one of us, I don’t think, believed [we would make it here] because we’ve been sharing ideas with each other like we were just two old guys who were never going to play each other,” Todd said. “I think sometimes we wish we wouldn’t have shared as much info.”